The Girl in Argyle
by RageRunsStill
Summary: A trilogy about my time at the Ekaterina stronghold. / Book One: The End of My World As I Know it: In which I'm kidnapped, humiliated, meet the Starlings and the Ohs, and somehow defeat the Lucians with toilet paper and Jolly Ranchers - true story!
1. B1: Foodbourne Illness

**Dedication:**_ To Pine, for convincing me to post this.  
_

* * *

The Girl in Argyle  


Book One: The End of My World (As I Know it)

_**Author's Foreword**_

_Hello. My name is... well, call me Rage. Everybody does._

_… __I knew it. The minute I mention my nickname, people would know it was me. I hate that._

_Some of you lucky folks... well, you may not actually know me. Maybe you've heard my name once or twice, or maybe you've never heard of me at all. For those people, feel glad. For once, be delighted in being left out of the loop and skip out of the room now. Close the book. Turn off the eReader. Shut down the computer – this book isn't for you._

_Who, exactly, is this book for, then? I'll tell you to whom it is written: the people who love me._

_Yeah. Am I your hero? Do you love or respect me in any way? Awesome! That's terror-ific! Read on; allow me to crush your opinion of me._

_This book – and the ones that accompany it, if I ever get those out – are my memoirs. That means it's a story on my travels, adventures, and, of course, myself._

_You see, my adventures were SO AMAZING that people felt the need to... exaggerate them. They make my "victories" - if you could call them that – seem so... so... amazing, that even __I__ want to believe them._

_But I was there. And that's not how it happened._

_So, long story short, I'm writing my memoirs to ruin your opinion of me. It's going to be hard to make you guys accept the truth – I mean, come on, that story about how I sprouted wings and gained the ability to breathe fire just to escape the Vespers was pretty convincing – but I ask you to have an open mind._

_It's for your own good._

_**Regina "Rage" Still**_

* * *

**INSERT TITLE HERE**

**- I -**

**by Regina Still**

Now, one would normally expect the home life of a hero to be one of two things: Really good, or really bad. Either the person was loved by all and wanted to spread the love by saving the world, or the person was hated and had a poor self-image and wanted to feel accomplished for one reason or another. Also, a close family member probably died. Father, grandfather, wife, children, recalcitrant nephew... You know, Spiderman stuff.

I, however, didn't have any of that. My father wasn't home much, and I was constantly with my mother. I had no friends. I loved writing, listening to music, movies, reading, and horseback riding. I had two dogs and, aside from pretending now and then, had no life. No _real_ life, anyway. I never did anything exciting.

So, yeah. You want to talk about a hero with humble beginnings, look over here! I did just about nothing all day, every day, with no real break between the "doing nothing" and the "being nobody." I guess you could say I was "normal," except I didn't even have school to look forward to, being homeschooled and all. I almost never got out of the house. Bor-ing.

But enough about that. That's not why you're here! You're here to learn about how much you should hate me. So, let the story begin!

…

Okay, yeah, you caught me. I'm not really sure where my story should start. I have a few ideas, but nothing good...

You know, thinking of how to begin a story is quite important. It's supposed to give your readers some sort of hook, so they keep coming back, begging for more. Only it's a little harder for me, because while I really want people to read this, I only want _certain_ people to read this. The ones who love me. Not the people who've never heard of me, or don't think I'm all that great. So I have to keep it entertaining enough so the right people will read it, and boring enough that the wrong people will finally turn off the computer like I told them to do in the first place (even though I knew darn well that they wouldn't do that because all you bookworms are the same – someone in a book says "don't" and you shout "NO!" like a two-year-old and stubbornly keep reading or otherwise doing the opposite of the direct order that was given to you.)

Hmm... That said, I think I know where to start this. Which is good. Because now I can finally start the chapter all official-like.

**FOODBORNE ILLNESS**

**- I -**

**by Regina Still**

It's funny how things stick out at you. Like how your waiter is acting way too nice, or your cashier's hair is so blonde that it's yellow (which kind of creeps you out even though you don't say anything and try your darnedest to look anywhere but his hair but it's just so darn BRIGHT and UNNATURAL that you _JUST CAN'T HELP IT_ and instead you have to busy yourself reading the sign on the wall about how there's a sale on coconut cream pies to keep from looking dumb), or how the glass partition in between these two tables is gone because there's a group of guests celebrating what might be a birthday, or how this whole paragraph is pretty much just a giant sentence strung together unintelligibly. You know. Stuff like that.

And those are exactly the weird things I noticed as my family and I were led to a table dead-center in the middle of a semi-dead restaurant, where all the food was (thankfully) dead as well.

I'm going to be honest right now: our table was too small for us. We were sitting at a four-person table, but there were five of us, and two of the occupants of said table were grabby toddlers. (My younger sister and brother, not to mention any names...) Every single dish that wasn't in use was pretty much thrust as far away from them as possible, which meant I, the poor responsible one, was crowded by empty bowls of soup and half-eaten plates of crackers. But I was used to it, so I really didn't mind all that much.

"Hello, and how are we doing tonight? My name is Craig, and I'll be your waiter this fine evening!"

_Fine evening?_ I thought, stifling a laugh. _If this is a fine evening to you, dude, then I feel sorry for you and your home life. It must be terrible. Or you're just too dang happy._

And before you ask, no, I'm not a pessimist. But I wasn't in my greatest mood that day.

"Can I start you off with something to drink?" Craig asked, whipping out his little waiters' notepad and a pen. He had short reddish-brown hair, and some weird goatee-like thing on his face, but I wasn't quite sure whether it had a name or not, and I wasn't sure how you Google something like that, so I still don't know what it's called, even though I've talked to Craig probably a dozen times since that day. It's hard to work up the courage to ask something like that. Also, he was tall. Like, six-foot-three kind of tall. I looked down at my menu, waiting to order last, as I always did.

Finally, after taking everybody else's orders, he came to me. "And what would you like, miss?"

"I'll have white milk, please, and the eggs, hash browns and toast breakfast," I replied politely.

"All right." He asked me a few questions about how I wanted my eggs made and what kind of bread I wanted and he was gone.

Nothing exciting really happened during the dinner, so I'll save you the long, boring description of how many baby wipes it took to clean up my siblings after their "wipe-food-all-over-your-body" party. I'll also spare you the uninteresting conversations I was sometimes dragged into but mostly stayed out of, and the quality of the food which was, at that time, subpar. It's been better, but I understood that the cook was probably busy – the restaurant's dinner rush had come in while we were waiting on our drinks. Figures.

So, after we finished eating, we packed up our circus and left... or started to. Obviously my mother had to pay the bill. So she did. But remember that cashier with the yellow hair we were talking about? Yup. He was still there. I didn't get a good look at his face (just enough to know it was slightly tanner than I was used to seeing and had black eyebrows) because I was much too busy trying to get a look at his name tag – because a guy with hair like that, you just _have_ to learn his name.

Personally, I thought he looked like a Sean, but his name was actually Robert. I was too busy looking at the sign about coconut cream pie in an effort to look nonchalant to listen to his smalltalk with my mother, but I probably hadn't missed anything good, anyway.

I mean, the guy was just a cashier.

* * *

The nausea began an hour after my siblings were laid down for the night. Nobody was really doing anything. My mother was talking to my father (who was, per usual, slouched on the couch with a laptop on his legs) who may or may not have been listening, but it really didn't matter because I was doing all the listening for him. And I hardly cared about what my mother had to say, because she only talks about five different subjects and they're rarely updated. But at least I can pat myself on the back and say I'm a good daughter.

Nonchalantly, I stood up and gave a little stretch. "Well, I think I'm gonna go to bed now," I said. I walked into the kitchen and quickly took the vitamins I take every night, with the added bonus of a swig of raw apple cider vinegar – that stuff cures everything. I'm serious. Just look it up if you don't believe me. That night, I took it to help with my heartburn (which I get quite frequently), which I probably got from the grease on the hash browns. I hate eating out.

"'Night, honey," my mother said, giving me a hug. "See you in the morning, bright and early, as usual."

I chuckled, even though I really didn't feel like it. "Yeah. All right. See you at seven – PM."

She laughed. "You're letting me sleep in? That's so nice of you."

I chuckled again and walked over to my father and gave him a hug, too. "'Night, Daddy!"

"Night, Regina," he mumbled in his usual manner. "Sleep well."

"You, too," I replied, and turned, jogging up the stairs and whispering, "Perry!"

Oh, Perry is my Shih Tzu, by the way. He often helps me with my stories. (Especially the ones that turn out well.) He's always with me when I write. Like, at the moment, he's sitting under my chair, sleeping, since this is one of the few times when I'm writing at home. Isn't he helpful?

Perry zipped up the stairs after me, and when I finally reached my bedroom at the end of the hallway, I closed the door before turning around and collapsing on my bed with a moan.

"My stomach hurts," I murmured to Perry, careful to keep quiet so as not to wake up my siblings, who sleep next door and across the hall.

The apple cider vinegar was slowly kicking in, and I was already beginning to feel a bit better, though I still felt pretty miserable. But that was okay... I guess.

I laid on my bed and closed my eyes, not bothering to get up to go through my nightly ritual. It really wasn't that important. I'm all for breaking routine. I like to think of myself as spontaneous, anyway.

So I closed my eyes and let myself slip into a restful sleep...

* * *

...Only to be woken up by the sound of someone tripping in the hallway.

My senses on high alert, my self-trained stealth skills kicking in, I made sure to stay still. I rolled over in my bed, my back facing the door to my bedroom, and tried to look dead to the world.

My mother is a much lighter sleeper than I am, but she also knew that I had been having trouble sleeping, being an insomniac and all. I glanced over my shoulder, at the clock on my bedside table, and felt my heart speed up ever so slightly.

_3:42 AM._

Dang it. This is around the time I usually woke up at night. I didn't normally go to the bathroom when I woke up, but sometimes I did... My mother might think that this person in the hallway was me. But it wasn't. Because I was lying in my bed trying to look small and asleep, and probably failing since I was trying my best not to hyperventilate. Or, at least, not hyperventilate _loudly_.

I was trying to figure out what to do, mentally going through everything in my room looking for a suitable weapon/whacking stick, when my door knob jiggled and the door swung open silently.

Darn my door's greased hinges and gaudy decorations. Anybody with such bad taste must have something worth stealing. I really need to take that stupid picture I drew of zebras standing in the African savanna off my bedroom door. It's not even that good.

I took deep breaths, which actually served two purposes: One, calming me down; two, making me look asleep.

Too bad it didn't matter.

Now, you're probably wondering how I knew the guy was a burglar. After all, my mother got up many times at night to soothe my siblings; how did I know it wasn't her? Well, simple: my mother doesn't creep around or try to be quiet, because my father and I are both heavy sleepers.

Oh, and she also doesn't come into my room unless she knows I'm awake. Which I had shown no indication of prior to when the idiot tried to kidnap me.

I figured the guy was just going to creep around my minefield – erm, _room_ – to find something to steal, but instead he walked right up to my bed and gingerly grabbed my arm. I sat up, wide-eyed, praying it was my mother.

The dude in front of me was _sooo_ not my mother.

I opened my mouth to let out a wail, but the man clamped his hand over my mouth before I could get it out. He used his strength full on my face to shove me back down onto my pillow, and started pressing on my windpipe with his free hand, removing the one from my mouth – no way I could scream now, regardless.

This all happened in less than ten seconds, and as I later learned, this guy knew what I suspected he did: that I had practiced screaming into a pillow just for a moment like this, so nobody could (easily) kidnap me by just covering my mouth. Just in case something like this ever happens to you, I'll give you my secret: it's all in the throat. If you want to make your voice heard when shouting into a pillow, scream from the throat instead of the mouth. It's louder that way. Or you could just try not getting into that situation, but as I learned, you just can't plan these things.

The man reached up with his hand that wasn't trying to strangle me and pressed on a bluetooth device that was sitting in his ear (although I couldn't see it because it was covered by his mask), saying, "I've got her. You better have the car ready when I get down there."

"Who... Get off..." I choked.

He chuckled, and whispered, "No – to both, in case you were wondering."

Now, I would _LOVE_ to be able to say that I broke out into some epic kung fu moves and whipped this guy to the ground like a spoonful of mashed potatoes, but this is a memoir, not a fiction novel. And while I could easily change it, the whole point of this is to tell you the truth and, by extension, ruin your opinion of me. And since kung fu is rather counterproductive, I'll tell you what really happened.

I flailed, and managed to land a couple decent (and rather savage) kicks to my adversary's stomach and leg before he pressed on my throat harder to make me stop. He hissed in pain. "You'd better be worth it," he grumbled.

… I didn't like the sound of that.

He pulled out a gun that had obviously been tucked into the back of his black jeans and pointed it right at my head. He whispered, "Look. I'm going to remove my hand. And I need you to not scream, or I shoot you right between the eyes." I nodded, deciding it was better to cooperate until I could get a better angle on him... and maybe some air in my lungs.

He let go and I took a deep, quiet breath, panting slightly. "Who are you?" I whispered, looking up fearfully.

I assumed he glared at me. I really couldn't be sure. "Did I say you could ask questions?"

I considered a witty remark, like, "You didn't say I _couldn't_ ask questions, so technically I'm not in the wrong," but I thought better of throwing a quirk at the guy with the gun that could quite possibly be loaded. So instead I said, "No..."

"Then shut up."

_Well then!_ I thought, but didn't say. To be honest, I'm surprised I wasn't scared stiff.

The man turned back to me. He had been listening to something on his bluetooth earpiece, and had replied with whatever had been said with, "Okay, see you in five." He gave me a look that seemed a bit disdained if you asked me. "Follow me," he said. "No noise, no calling for help, no funny business at all. You try anything, and you'll eat a bullet. Understand?"

I nodded, once again feeling some really good comebacks coming to me. Such as, "I already ate" and "Do or do not, there is no try, remember?" However, I am as wise as I am witty, and my mouth moved not a centimeter.

"Good. Now move." He motioned toward the door with his gun.

I decided not to tell him to take his finger off the trigger so he wouldn't accidentally shoot my sister sleeping peacefully on the other side of the hallway while he waves his gun around like an A-plus report card. He probably wouldn't do it, anyway.

I crept out of my room, remembering I had no socks on, had on only my pajamas, and that my useless dog was still sitting on my bed. Some guard, even though I already knew he wasn't one.

Perry jumped off my bed to follow us.

"Shh," I said to him. His dog tags were jangling like bells on Bob's tail. "Come here." I bent down to pick him up, but he skittered away, being a naturally skittish dog.

"Just go," hissed the man. "Forget the mutt."

I wanted to tell him off, but one look at the gun and I turned and continued down the hall.

When we hit the bottom of the staircase, I glanced around a bit, wondering where he got in, how he got past my other dog, a Husky/Labrador mix named AJ, how we were going to leave, and if there was anything in the immediate vicinity with which I could hit him over the head. Nothing jumped out at me.

"By the way," he whispered, as if reading my mind, "your dog is very nice. Amazing what a few treats could do."

I can't believe my fourteen-year-old dog, who had been vicious to anybody he didn't know when he was younger, had become bribe-ible in his old age.

I swallowed. AJ, despite being an old man, was pretty much the closest thing we had to a decent security system. I wasn't at all comforted by the sight of him lying by the front door like nothing strange was happening.

"Front window," the man said, poking me with the gun's cold barrel. "Now."

"Which one?" I asked, since we had two.

"The right one."

More witty remarks that I didn't say ("I _know_ the right one, but I'm asking you which one the right one is!") ran through my head as I walked toward the window, pulling up the blinds quietly. The window was open, the screen pushed up as well.

I hesitated. I didn't want to leave. Sure, my life was hectic, but it was my _life_; I hardly knew anything different. I knew stories of people who had gotten kidnapped and never saw their family again, or hadn't seen them until they were decades older. What if that was me? I didn't want that. Ever. I would rather eat a bullet.

Thinking along this line of thought empowered me. Maybe I _could_ get away. Maybe I could take this guy. Maybe I could steal his gun. Maybe I could hit him over the head with it, call the police, and make a cup of tea, since I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, for sure. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All these "maybe I coulds" sounded fantastic... and fantastical. There was nothing substantial in it. It was my imagination, once again giving me some whimsy in my time of need. But it couldn't help me. Not now.

I looked up, out into the coolness of the night... and stepped through the window, out onto the front porch, and away from my old life as I knew it... even if I hadn't known it at the time.


	2. The Yellow Dragon

**THE YELLOW DRAGON**

**- II -**

**by Regina Still**

I woke up trussed to a chair.

Oh, wait, you don't know how I got there. The last chapter stopped when I was on the porch, walking away from my house and family and old life...

Let me fill you in.

I walked off the porch, the concrete freezing my bare feet, as my idiot kidnapper closed the window and relocked it with some crazy device I had never heard of (which I later learned was a highly sophisticated magnetic device, since the locks on our windows were metal), before turning around to poke me with the gun again. "_Walk_," he said, talking full volume now. "I know you have all night, but I don't."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Shut up."

"Have you at least given my parents some sort of warning?" I insisted. I remembered reading a book series where kids were kidnapped by their parents' permission so they could be secretly taken to a school for villains that nobody knew existed. My parents wouldn't want me to become a villain, but anything sounded better than this.

"I said shut up, you little pest. I can't believe I got stuck with you," the man snapped.

I fell silent.

We walked down to the end of the street and there, sitting on the corner (with one tire on the curb) was a black sedan. It didn't seem brand new, maybe a few years old, but at the same time, it looked... different. I wasn't sure I had ever seen a sedan like that. I mean, I was not, and am not, an expert on cars, but what I did have was a photographic short-term memory, so I pretty much knew what a car was supposed to look like. Yet I couldn't tell you how this one was different from any other Hyundai. I hate that.

The man stuffed his gun back in his pants and grasped my arm in a vise. "Get in," he said, opening the back door.

I gazed uncertainly at the tire on the curb. "You sure that thing's on there well enough that it won't fall? You could damage your hubcap and even puncture your tire."

"I said _get in_," he grit out, flinging me toward the open doorway.

I hit my head on ceiling. "Oww..." I groaned, slipping into the back seat and sliding over to the other side. (Which I couldn't really help because the car was tilted that way and it had leather seats.) The man got in beside me, planted his feet firmly on the floor so he wouldn't slide into me, and once the door was closed, he took off his mask.

Stupid cashiers. You should never trust them. It was Robert.

And I was tongue-tied. I thought it couldn't get any more surprising or worrying or scary or anything.

Well, until the driver turned around in his seat and grinned at me happily. "Hi there!" Craig said, as if he wasn't an accomplice in kidnapping a fifteen-year-old girl. "You look rested. Sorry about this. It'll get explained soon, I promise." He said the apology like it was a day at the beach and he had accidentally bounced his beach ball off my head – you know, something annoying but not deadly.

"Um... hi," I said timidly. "Can you answer questions?"

I noticed Robert's eyes do a perfect three-sixty at that – I wanted to brain him, but I was still kind of scared, so I didn't think about it long.

Craig grinned again. Er, well, he never actually stopped. "First, sniff this," he said, thrusting a handkerchief at me. "It'll calm you down. You look kinda anxious."

So I took it and sniffed it cautiously. It smelled sweet. Like violets or something. I couldn't be sure. I tried sniffing it again, trying to figure out what it smelled like, when I suddenly got lightheaded. I dropped the handkerchief in my lap, but it was too late. The damage had been done. My vision blurred and just before I passed out I realized what I had been smelling, even though I didn't know what it smelled like.

Chloroform. Of course.

* * *

Realize _now_ why I'm obviously too stupid to be a hero? Sitting there, sniffing a handkerchief dipped in a highly toxic chemical, knocking myself out _for_ my kidnappers?

As stupid as I was, though, I will have to say that there's a reason I did it. My mother is a huge fan of something called "essential oils." Essential oils... well, I'll let you look them up, but suffice to say that they do things (such as calm you down) and most of them smell sweet, or strong, much like the chloroform does. As far as I knew, Craig had been truly trying to calm me down and had given me a handkerchief with a few drops of an essential oil on it. And after what I had been through, something familiar was just what I had needed.

So yeah. Today's lesson is: "If someone is kidnapping you and hands you a sweet-smelling handkerchief telling you it will calm you down, DO NOT SMELL IT. It's not oil. It's a chemical that has been known to kill people."

Personally, I think that's a good lesson to derive from my stupidity.

Now... where was I before I was so _rudely_ interrupted by your inconsiderate whining about how you "don't know what's going on" and "need clarification" about the events of blah, blah, blah, blah... Ah, yes.

* * *

I woke up trussed to a chair.

The room I was in was dark. A spotlight, like something out of a movie, beamed down on me from somewhere I couldn't see. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I noticed there was a man sitting across from me, in his own chair.

This man was probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He was African American, with burning brown eyes that twinkled like he had a fantastic joke to tell at my expense. He wore a knitted yellow sweater, and on the left breast was an interesting crest: a yellow dragon. Okay, technically the dragon itself wasn't yellow. It was white, but it sat inside a shield-like thing that was shaped like a rectangle sitting on its side (vertically) with all the corners crudely cut off. The dragon's wings were spread and a wisp of fire came from its mouth. It looked angry. I was now more sure than ever that I had been abducted by loonies.

Well... until I saw Mr. Banana's shoes. I mean, sure, yellow sweater is pretty normal. Blue jeans, like his, just scream "average Joe." But yellow sneakers with a screen on the side, and BRIGHT ORANGE SHOELACES that looked like they were made out of rappelling rope? … Not so much. They were the ugliest shoes I had ever seen. And that's saying something.

Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I totally wouldn't make fun of them. I own a pair now. They're all I'll wear. I mean, how many shoes do YOU know have a GPS, a poison dart launcher, a switchblade, rappelling rope laces, AND anti-footprint technology? Yeah. I thought so. (They're still ugly, though, and not very covert. I'm actually going to be designing a more inconspicuous pair next week. But let's not talk about "now" just yet... Let's talk about _then_.)

Mr. Banana smiled. "Hello, Regina. Nice to finally meet you in person."

I blinked at him in response.

He continued. "Yes, we know who you are. Surprised?"

I put on a sour look. "Maybe yesterday I might have been, but after last night – it was last night, right? - I'm not surprised by anything. And, you know, it's kind of obvious you know who I am, or you wouldn't have abducted me in the first place."

"Abducted is such a harsh word," Banana said. "I wouldn't say that."

"I would."

He sighed. "Okay, it's just a word. But do you know why you're here?"

I raised my eyebrows. This dude is an idiot. "Let me answer that question with another: Would I still be sitting here calmly if I did?"

He seemed to consider this before shaking his head. "No, probably not, you're right."

I sat back in my chair, satisfied. Gosh, I was surprised I was so calm. Shouldn't I have been freaking out or something?

"The reason you're here is because you are part of a family called the Cahills."

I'm just going to stop writing this right there. Why? Because this conversation goes on for over an hour, and all he's doing is explaining the Cahills. Many of you reading this – preferably _all_ of you, but some recalcitrant non-Cahills might be reading this – should be Cahills. You should already know about the four branches, the founders, the split, the serum, all of it. However, some of you may not, so here's the short version:

Five hundred years ago, there was a plague. Gideon Cahill wanted to save his four kids, even if he couldn't protect himself and his wife. So he made a serum out of these different ingredients, each serum being different for each child. It enhanced their best abilities and gave them immunity from the virus. The eldest, Luke, got more cunning and devious. Katherine got smarter. Thomas got stronger. Jane got more poetic and artistic and stuff. A fire burned down the Cahill home, and the kids fought and split up, leaving their now-widowed mother, Olivia, behind as they scattered across the globe, each one trying to get as far away from the others as humanly possible. Each one got married and had kids of their own, who had kids of their own, and et cetera, until many of the people in today's world turn out to be Cahills from one branch or another. The Lucian branch, started by Luke, are cunning like he was and tend to be spies and world leaders. Jane started the Janus branch and they're artistic; your favorite musician or painter is probably a Janus, and he is almost guaranteed to personally know one if he's not. Thomas made the branch called Tomas, and all of them are pretty much ninety-eight percent brawn and exactly two percent brain. If that. Katherine founded the Ekaterinas, a race of supercomputer human beings. Apparently, she liked dragons and yellow. So now you know – I'm an Ekaterina. And you probably know who the man sitting in front of me was, too.

That was pretty much the exact thing that he said to me, except his was much more detailed and went on for over an hour. See? Aren't you happy I gave you the short version?

"And you just expect me to believe all this?" I asked when he was done. I glared at him. "Do I look like an idiot?"

"You're an Ekaterina," Banana insisted. "As was your father, and his father before him."

"You're telling me _my_ family linage and I don't even know your name. Just that you have a terrible sense of fashion. I was taken from my house in the middle of the night, sniffed a toxic substance, and tied to a chair to be fed a bunch of crap I don't even believe!" I raged. (No pun intended, for those of you who know me.) "I could be in my bedroom listening to Taylor Swift and writing something awesome right now, but instead I'm stuck in who-knows-where listening to a banana tell me about my heritage!"

"One, I'm not a banana, and two, my name is Victor Wood."

"Okay, fine, Mr. Lemon, if you know so much about me and my family, then tell me why my father has never mentioned the Cahills if he is one."

"He doesn't know." Victor shrugged. "We only tell the promising agents that they are one of us. We've skipped your family for many generations."

I shifted in my seat. Okay, great, loony man thinks my whole family is stupid. But if that's the case, then that means they chose me because they felt I had potential. But that's ridiculous. I'm... well, nothing special. Dyslexic, maybe. Photographic short-term memory, sure. Quick learner. Quick thinker. I have some unique talents... but to be an Edison mini-me? No way. There's no way I'm that smart. I'm hopeless. I couldn't even _spell_ "hope" until I was eleven.

"Do you have proof?" I asked quietly.

Now it was Victor's turn to shift. "Not really, no. We could take a blood test-"

"No, nope!" I said, eyes widening. "I'm good. I believe you."

He smiled at that. "You do?"

I shrugged. "It's probably not the most unbelievable thing that I've ever been told. So, what happens now?"

"I guess you get a tour of the facility, a change of clothes, shown your quarters and meet your mentor. Not in that order," he added.

I looked down. I was still in my pajamas. That's embarrassing.

* * *

Mr. Wood was true to his word. I was shown my quarters, which were filled with my favorite kinds of clothes: polos, argyle sweaters, and even a couple button-downs and regular old t-shirts. Then there were both jeans _and _khakis, and I had two pairs of penny loafers (one black pair, one brown pair, and each shoe was preloaded with a penny) and a pair of those tacky yellow shoes. I chose a sky-blue short-sleeved polo, a pair of khaki pants, and the brown penny loafers. I also grabbed the double-sided belt (just like my old one!) and twisted it so the brown half faced outward before putting it on and walking outside to join my tour guide.

I was on top of the world.

So, I'm not going to go into extensive detail about my tour, mostly because I hardly remember any of it. Suffice to say that it took a long time because the stronghold is HUGE. There are labs, training areas, physical fitness rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, _heliports_! To go through it all, I would need to write a separate book. So I think I'll skip that part, and instead go to the part that won't blow your mind quite so much – the part where I meet the man I almost kill later, a.k.a. my tutor.

Craig, whose happiness had not been faked at neither the restaurant nor in the car (Yes, he's actually _that _happy _all the time_), had taken me to my room and on the tour. He made it fun. It was supposed to be him _and_ Robert, but Robert said he wasn't putting up with me any longer, and went off to do something... science-y, I guess. I mean, he is an Ekaterina. So Craig had taken me on the tour alone, and had a heck of a time showing me everything. I don't think his mouth stopped moving the whole time. And he was still talking when lunch rolled around, at which time we were going to go eat and I would meet my trainer.

We waited in line at the cafeteria-like place, and Craig talked as I grabbed a turkey and swiss sandwich. We moved down the line while Craig talked and I grabbed a milk carton. We went over to our chairs because the food here is free (family discount, _ahaha_!) and sat down at the table Craig led me to while he talked. He continued his monologue as I looked at the other three people at the table, who were talking amongst themselves, although I couldn't hear what they were saying over Craig continuing to say things. (Yeah, I know. This guy talks more than my mother. I didn't think it was possible, but he blows her out of the water. He makes her seem like an introvert. And that's saying something.) I unwrapped my sandwich as I politely continued to listen and took a small bite. I don't usually like swiss cheese, but I'm way more likely to eat swiss and turkey than ham and cheddar, so it was only logical. It wasn't bad at all.

"... Oh, and Regina, this is your tutor." Craig grinned at me and motioned across the table.

The three other people at the table were obviously related. Two boys (who were completely identical at first glance, but now that I've been around them longer I know there are three sure-fire ways to tell them apart... but I'll get to that in a moment), and a girl, all with bright blue eyes, shiny auburn hair and freckles. They wore matching white argyle sweaters and khakis. My kind of people, even though I don't usually like freckles; but I don't judge. After all, I have them, too.

They looked up, seeming to notice us for the first time. The girl smiled, although I wasn't sure whether to take it as a greeting or a threat. It looked kind of sinister to me. "Well, not me, I can tell you, but I'm not my brothers' keeper. I'm Sinead Starling. Nice to meet you."

I nodded to her politely as the brother to her right (my left) began to speak: "And I'm Ned. I refuse to tutor people, same as my sister. I've got better things to do than to help newbs, so you must be Ted's charge."

I glanced over at the third person. He smiled. "Yes, you should be mine. Are you Regina Still?"

I nodded.

"Well, then, welcome to the Ekaterinas, officially. I take it Craig has filled you in on all the important stuff?"

I gave him a look that I hoped said, _And much, much, MUCH more_, and he burst into laughter.

"Good. I'm in charge of finding your talents, honing in on them, and then destroying your weakness." He grinned again, but now his smile seemed as sinister as his sister's. "I can't wait to get started!"

"When do we start?" I asked, worried now.

"Tomorrow, I do believe, immediately after breakfast."

I nodded again and took a sip from my milk carton, both scared and excited for tomorrow.

* * *

Which is probably why I couldn't sleep.

I tossed and turned and turned and tossed and trussed myself up in my covers and turned again, only to get stuck and have to untangle myself, waking up my body from whatever relaxedness it had been starting to achieve. I thought I was going to go out of my mind. I mean, there were so many things in the room that would make it hard for me to sleep without my insomnia, that with it I might as well have just gotten up. Read a book until morning. Except I didn't have a book. Or a computer. Or a magazine. Or a deck of cards. Or anything else that could have kept me entertained until the sun arose. So I was stuck lying in bed, doing nothing, praying for daylight.

I finally let myself begin to feel sad. I missed my family. And my dogs. Would I ever see them again? Would I like it here, in this place that seems totally obsessed with dragons and technology and the color yellow? Would I fit in? What would happen if it turned out that I'm not Ekat material, that I'm not smart enough to be here, despite Katherine's serum? Did I even _have_ a special skill? If I did, I sure didn't know what it was.

I got up and went to the bathroom connected to my quarters. I washed my face with a wet paper towel and stared at my reflection, studying it. Brown hair with a slight but natural curl, now frizzed out and tangled from my fight with the covers. An hourglass figure, small hands, arms that were obviously not toned, a few freckles (though not many) splashed across my nose and cheekbones, fair skin... and a few tears sparkling in blue-green eyes. I came to a decision that night:

Maybe I wasn't cut out for this, but I still needed to try.


	3. Pen and Arrow

**PEN AND RULER**

**- III -**

**by Regina Still**

_BEEEP. BEEEP. BEEEP._

I jumped up, frightened, and whipped around to my alarm clock. The glowing display told me it was six AM, but when you go two nights without decent sleep, six in the morning is the last thing you want to see. But sunlight streamed through the little window in my room, and I couldn't deny that it was morning. I was in the middle of wondering if it was morning at my parents' house when someone started pounding on my door.

I contemplated whether I should get up or scream "Come in" when the door opened by itself, sliding into the wall like all the doors here.

Ted Starling stood in the doorway, looking surprised to see me awake. "Oh, you're up," he said. "I was fully prepared to flip the mattress."

"How could I have possibly slept through that thing?" I asked, pointing a finger at the silenced clock.

Ted shrugged and straightened his black polo shirt. "You'd be surprised," he replied. "You'd better get ready quickly. Breakfast starts at six-thirty."

"Thanks," I said, swinging my legs off the bed and standing up.

I showered and got dressed into a purple argyle sweater, the novelty of having such clothes at my disposal not worn off. It would probably be a long time before I tried the t-shirts – I mean, that's all I really had at home. Slipping on the black penny loafers and the belt on black-side out, I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Of course, staring at my hair, it was wet and flat against my head. It didn't really look bad, and I knew it would begin to look better as it dried, but I thought I should probably blow dry it... but I had no idea how to use a hairdryer on myself. I'd seen my mother and professional hairdressers do it lots of times, but they kind of had a better angle... In the end, I left it alone, and marched away toward the cafeteria.

Where Craig proceeded to talk.

What? You thought Craig had run out of things to say? That's ridiculous! I think he _invented_ things to talk about in the middle of the night. The Starlings were rolling their eyes and drumming their fingers and eating faster than they should, but they were obviously trying to hide it. I felt bad for them. Not used to being around Chatty Cathys? Of course, neither was I, at least not to the extent that Craig took it to, but I was more than willing to attempt to fair it. I was like him once... but I got over it.

Finally, I finished eating. Ted had finished a long time ago, and he looked more than relieved to see that I was done. I gave it my best shot to ignore him.

"Well!" Ted spoke up, standing as he rudely (but necessarily) cut Craig off. "We would love to stay and chat, but Regina has a training session. Come on, Regina. Let's see how you do on your first test."

Test. I don't like tests. I never pass well, even if I know the information. I didn't like that he worded it that way. _Test_. Why didn't he just say _practice session_? Or something similar? Because if it's a test, then it means just what I was afraid of: There's a right answer to every question.

I'm doomed.

* * *

"Make something out of it."

I stared at the stuff in front of me. Three pieces of paper. A pen. Nothing more, but there were a few drawers in the desk, so I had a feeling I'd find more stuff in there, but I probably wasn't supposed to use it if it wasn't laid out... Oh well. Rules were made to be broken.

"What do you mean, 'Make something out of it'?" I asked, picking up a piece of paper. "You mean, like, a paper airplane?"

We were in one of the training rooms, which were each about the size of two basketball courts side by side. I wasn't sure what they were used for, but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. I doubted paper airplane-making was high on their list of Ekat qualifications.

"No," Ted said. "I mean, draw a diagram. Preferably of an invention you thought of, since every self-respecting Ekaterina has thought of an invention, but if you must you may draw a schematic of something that's already been invented by a historical Ekat. Any questions?"

"Uh, yeah. Are you going to sit in here and watch? And how much time do I have to do it?"

"I have to ask Ned something, so no, I guess. And let's say... ten minutes?" He grinned. "Good luck!" And with that, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with paper and pens and instructions. Great.

Don't get me wrong, I like work. I enjoy working, and thinking, and having to ponder things and all I'm going to be doing for a given thing. But stuff like this? Not my forte. My mind slipped back to a question I had managed to squish for the last few hours: What happens if I turn out to _not_ be Ekaterina material?

I didn't want to think about it.

I picked up a pen. I grabbed a piece of paper. I drew a circle. I drew two vertical lines. I drew a curvy line. I held up the paper to look at my masterpiece.

It was a smiley face.

Once again: I'm doomed.

Doesn't Mr. I-Know-Everything-About-Nothing know I can't draw to save my life? And he wants me to draw a _schematic_!? Is he mental?

Eh. Probably.

Boredly, I started going through the drawers in the desk. I found a tape dispenser (with tape), pencils, more pens, more paper, a ruler, glue, rubber bands, sticky-notes... You know, things you might expect to find in a desk. I even found a red paperclip. I stuffed it into my pocket. Paperclips are cool.

Unfortunately, however, paperclips weren't going to help me here. I had to draw something. Something good. Something cool. My best invention. (I have three.) I had to-

Hey, look! Rubber bands! Ruler! Tape!

I'm gonna have me some fun.

I reached in and grabbed the ruler, setting it on the desk before me. Then I grabbed the tape and a rubber band, and a pair of scissors.

I used the scissors to snip the rubber band, so it was more of a rubber string. I taped it securely to the ruler so it was stretched out, one end of the rubber band on each end of the ruler, going longways, so one was taped at 0 and the other at 12. Then I grabbed one of the pens. They were the cheap pens that you can buy in, like, thirty packs from Walmart for five dollars. I took off the cap (pointed away from me, just in case some Percy Jackson fan got a nasty sense of humor), and pulled out the ink stick and ballpoint. I tossed the pen housing aside, as well as the cap. They rolled onto the floor, but I didn't care.

The ruler was plastic, and had holes on the top, bottom, and middle parts. I inserted the plastic ink tube through the middle hole, butting it up against the rubber band. I pulled the rubber band back, the ink stick caught between my fingers. The flimsy plastic ruler bowed under the pressure, and I grinned gleefully; now only the ballpoint tip stuck out through the hole.

That, my friends, was not an invention of my own, I admit; I read about it in a book. It's called a Ruler Bow. You can look it up if you want. It launches pen arrows up to forty feet and is actually pretty accurate for what it is. It's one of the simplest launchers you can make out of household objects, as is another launcher that I make later in this installment of my memoirs. But let's keep the past in the past and the past that is actually the future for you guys in the... wherever that is, okay? No need to get ahead... er, behind... ourselves, right?

Now, if you guys think I'm going to make a Ruler Bow and not fire it, you're idiots. But not as big an idiot as I was when I actually _did_ fire it – because apparently it took longer than I thought when I made it.

The pen-arrow was loosed before I had time to think of how stupid the idea actually was. I mean, it was "stupid enough to wear a swimsuit to play in the snow" kind of stupid. _That's_ how stupid it was. But hey, I had fun until Ted stepped in.

Ted walked through the door the second that arrow left my ruler-bow. The pen-arrow cut through the air like a knife, and struck the wall... not even a foot from Ted's head. He jumped, startled, and stared at the arrow on the floor. Then he sent me a look somewhere between shock, disbelief, and a death glare. As he stormed over, I picked up my picture of the happy face and raised it up so it covered half of my own, more terrified expression.

He snatched the paper out of my hand and threw it on the floor. "Really? I ask you to draw a simple diagram and you ambush me?!"

"Technically, you almost walked into my arrow, so..." The words "I can't be held accountable" died on my lips. Okay, new tactic. "In my defense, I didn't know you were coming through the door."

"Ignorance is no excuse," he said pointedly. His clipboard, which he had taken with him before we even came into Training Room Six, and with which he had left to go talk to his brother, was still tucked under his arm, as it had been since he explained to me what I was _supposed_ to be doing with the extremely tempting office supplies surrounding me. I bit my lip as he brought it up and wrote something on it, careful to make sure I couldn't see anything he had written.

Which reminds me.

Remember how I said there were three sure-fire ways to tell Ned and Ted apart? Well, let me tell them to you.

For one thing, Ted is a bit more mild than his brother, but that's not one of the things you can use to tell them apart. (Well, it is, but it's one of those things you look for too late.) But one thing you _can_ use to tell them apart on sight is their hair – Ned parts his on the left and Ted parts his on the right.

What? You say you have trouble remembering that? Don't worry – the Starlings' eyes come in two different colors. You know how their eyes are blue, right? Well, Ned's is a bright, icy blue that chills you to the bone. Ted and Sinead's on the other hand are a slightly darker, more sapphire blue.

Still too hard to remember? Chill out – just look at their hands. Ned and Sinead are like me; right-handed. But Ted is left-handed. Even though the Starling boys have similar handwriting styles, you can always tell if it's Ted's or not, because he writes his capital A's like most left-handed folk: He makes the pointy part, and then doubles back, as if he were writing a backwards check mark. Does the same thing to lowercase G's and Y's, doubling the dangle-y part back to the left.

So there you have it. Three ways to tell the Starlings apart at a glance. Hope I helped you out and saved you from a bunch of embarrassment at the next Cahill family reunion.

After Ted finished writing my death sentence on his clipboard, he stormed out, which I thought was a little melodramatic, but I knew better than to say anything. So instead, I, sighing, stood up and walked out of TR6, leaving my Ruler Bow on the table, much too depressed and worried to care about my childish games any longer.

And all because Ted came in at the wrong time. Gosh, what is the world coming to?

* * *

In case you were wondering, yes, the whole week went something like that.

Ted asked me to make a rocket, I would make him one out of macaroni I borrowed from the kitchen.

Ted asked me to write a report on Einstein, I would make it as short as possible because they wouldn't supply me with a computer.

Ted asked me to make him a robot, I would lose a wrench and have to quit the exercise.

I even failed the physical fitness training! (And may I say that Ted has a MEAN right hook for a lefty?) I think it had something to do with the fact that a punch to the face equaled disqualification. I'm not sure. I was too busy clutching my cheek and trying not to cry. (You laugh, you DIE. You haven't been punched by him, okay?)

So, as you can imagine, between the fact that the moon shone through the little window in my room full-blast (I need darkness to sleep), my aching muscles, and the lack of things to do to battle insomnia and boredom all night, I was a worrywart in the dictionary sense, and all my thought-controlling procedures had been shut down to save energy. All I could think about was my parents. Where were they? Were they looking for me? Did they miss me? Did they know where I was? Would I ever see them again?

I was worried out of my mind. Every time the sun went down and it was lights out in the stronghold, I would get worried and depressed. And every time the sun came up and it was breakfast time, my troubles would be forgotten and I couldn't wait to start my day. This went on for a little over a week, each night I only got a few hours of decent sleep, each day I only got a few hours of decent downtime.

And Craig was _STILL TALKING_.

I'm not going to lie to you. I wanted to punch him in the head sometimes. But I have to say, he's a great guy. I hope you get to meet him someday. With earplugs.

Now where was I? Oh, yeah, downtime. As you can imagine, I was going out of my brain by the time Day Eleven in the Ekat stronghold rolled around and reared its ugly head. Actually, it wasn't so bad. That was just the day when I got evaluated. And, as I later learned, the day I got my first mission.

Did I ever mention that Day Eleven was a Tuesday? How about that my mission started an hour before Wednesday?

Yeah. There are reasons why, after the relative calm-before-the-storm of Tuesday, that even the calender doesn't mind being a little un-family-friendly by screaming "_W T F!?_"


	4. The Evaluation

**THE EVALUATION**

**- IV -**

**by Regina Still**

Exhausted, I stumbled into breakfast the next morning, grabbing an apple and a banana before plunking myself down in my usual seat. I normally ate cereal, but I didn't feel like it then; my cheek was still a bit sore from the punch two days ago.

"Hi, Regina," Craig said enthusiastically. "You look tired. Have you been sleeping okay?"

"Sort of," I answered.

"That's good. Or, not good. Why haven't you been sleeping well? Is there a problem with your room? We get lots of funds, being the inventive branch and all, so I'm sure Bae will let you bring in some new things to spice it up-"

"It's not that," I cut him off, too tired to care about being rude. "I mean, yes, the room isn't really helping my insomnia, but it's not exactly making it any worse. It's... well, I'm kind of homesick. But it's nothing I can't handle."

"Speaking of," Ted started before Craig could, "your evaluation is today."

"Evaluation?" I grimaced, suddenly remembering. "Oh, yeah. Where I see whether or not I'm going to be kicked out."

"Bae is flying in," Ted said, unruffled as he ripped wedges out of his peeled orange. A pile of rind sat on his plate that had once held eggs and toast. "He does that quite often, so you're nothing special for that, but it will give you a chance to meet him. He's the head of the branch."

"Yes, Bae Oh, I remember him. Isn't he almost a hundred years old?"

"Close. Ninety-three."

I gave a low whistle. "Wow." The oldest person I had ever met was my great-grandfather, and he died at eighty-seven. I wondered what a person even older would look like, because my grandfather had practically died a skeleton. (Of course, he had starved himself to death, but that's neither here nor there.)

"Oh, yeah," Craig started in, Ned giving a low moan and Sinead shutting her mouth since she had been about to say something herself. She didn't look happy. "Bae has been the branch leader since Gordon Oh died. He was Alistair's father. Gordon, I mean, not Bae. Bae is his uncle, and took him in after Gordon's passing. In fact, that reminds me of a time when-"

I tuned him out. I didn't do that to people, or should I say I very rarely did, before coming there. Then I needed to start doing it just to stay sane.

Irritated, Ted pulled out his phone and typed out a message; then, without sending it, held the phone out so I could read the screen. Apparently he didn't think it would be worth it to interrupt Craig again. I have to commend him on that.

On the glowing screen were the words: _Eval at 10_

I frowned. Great. Time to brood and worry about something else. I put my index finger's tip and my thumb's tip together in the OK sign. He nodded and pocketed his phone.

I stood. "I'm going to go... do something until my evaluation time. I guess I'll go hang out at the library. Call if you need me." I walked away without waiting for an answer, leaving my uneaten apple on the table, and straightening my yellow polo shirt as I went. I never really got time to check out the library at the Ekaterina base, so I was actually quite happy for a change that allowed me to maybe read a chapter or two in a book. Even if it did mean that I would never get to see this awesome library again.

What? I shouldn't be so pessimistic? Look, I failed _everything_. I told you in the last chapter of all my failures. How was I supposed to remain positive when _every last thing_ was against me? The only thing I could really hope for was that when the Ekats don't need someone anymore, they just let them go instead of kill them.

Admittedly, my hopes weren't high there, either.

It took me a few minutes, but I finally found the library, and immediately seated myself in one of the comfy leather armchairs placed around the three-story room. I closed my eyes and bowed my head, resting it in my hands and closing my eyes. Worn out. Worried. I know I've said it a million times, but I don't think I can take much more of this. Every time I give myself five minutes to think and mull over what's been happening recently, my thoughts always go back to my parents, and my old life, and everything else that's been going on.

To be completely honest with you, it's really annoying.

So instead of focusing on that, I dragged my exhausted butt out of the chair and walked over to the nearest shelf. "Engineering." Could care less. "Physics." Don't need a headache right now. "Psychology." I doubt I could get much better via a book. "Social Sciences." "Autobiographies and Biographies of Historical Ekaterinas." "Inventions from the Ekat World." "Wars." "Cahills." "Fiction" - heeeeey. I wonder what kind of fiction the Ekaterina stronghold would have? I don't remember many – if any – Ekat authors that aren't scientists or something similar as well, but you never know, I guess.

I skimmed the shelf with interest, having quite the affinity for fiction books. It didn't really surprise me that most of them were classics like _A Christmas Carol_ and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. I couldn't imagine Ekats reading something more modern. It also didn't surprise me that the Fiction section was only one shelf while the other subjects took two or three. Again, I had a hard time picturing an Ekat settling down with _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ when they had a whole section on _real_ Greek mythology. Or aerospace engineering. You've just got to pick your battles with any branch, and with Ekats, the fight stops at reading material.

An orange cover with black lettering caught my eye, and before I knew it a copy of _Catcher in the Rye_ was in my hand. I had read the first chapter of this book while I waited for my father to finish a conversation. He works at a school (in the computer department, of course; he fixes the teachers' computers), and connected to the school is a library. Bored, I had started scanning the shelves and this book had caught my eye, what with it's bright orange cover. I had heard of it, and read the first chapter while I waited. In truth, I was kind of disgusted at the amount of language, but it did keep me busy, and I never give up on a book at Chapter One. Chapters Two and Three, maybe, but never Chapter One; the book has just begun then. Maybe I should read this to wait out yet another grueling session of boredom, this one much more painstaking than the last (if that's possible)?

"I love that book."

I jumped, swinging the book around as I spun to face the speaker, bringing it up in front of me like a shield; I was ready to fight.

For no reason, to my dismay. And the person behind me wasn't even Ted – Ted's voice isn't quite as deep – so he didn't even get to see my epic ninja moves. Figures.

"Jumpy," Ned Starling grinned.

I sighed, lowering the book. "Sorry. I didn't hear you come in."

"I was already in here. I saw you sitting in the armchair. I was going to go bug you, but I thought you were crying and the last thing I wanted to do was play comforter."

"Gee, you're a true friend, Ned," I said sarcastically. "And no, I wasn't crying. Just... resting. I'm tired."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, seeming to rethink what he was about to say. He shrugged. "So, have you read it?" he asked, motioning to _Catcher in the Rye_.

"No," I admitted. "I read the first chapter a couple years back, but I've yet to read the whole thing."

"It's good," he assured with a grin. "I highly recommend it."

I pushed the book back on the shelf, deciding against it for now. "I'll read it later, then." I frowned. "Assuming there even is a 'later.'"

Ned smiled in a way that was probably sympathetic for a Starling. I'd seen Ted give me that look a few times. "You know, I've seen Ted's notes... Well, okay, they're not great, but I've seen worse. You just need to stop worrying so much. I have a feeling you've got a talent that we'll really need. And you never know with Bae – that man is nuts, and I mean _nuts_. He may keep you just for the heck of it. Just chill out. Do you know how to play chess?"

As I considered his words, I nodded. "I relearned this past Christmas. I learned the first time when I was four, but I had long since forgotten, so I'm not all that good. Why?"

Ned grinned again, but this time it was as diabolical as the first time I met him. "There's a chess board on the second floor. I'll play you."

"Is it for bragging rights? Because I'm going to lose," I said, completely serious.

He chuckled. "It can be."

I gave him a sideways smile. "How about we play checkers instead?"

"Checkers!?" he exclaimed dubiously. "We're in a stronghold of just about every genius that is currently on the earth and you're telling me you want to play _checkers_?!"

Gosh. I felt sort of bad for even asking.

"I've been playing it for longer; I'd be more of a challenge."

He grunted like he was considering it, but I shrugged before he could make up his mind. "Did Ted happen to say anything exceedingly bad about my performance on the tests?" Somehow talking about it made me less nervous, even when I was given bad news.

Ned thought for a moment before replying. "I'm actually not supposed to say; even as much as I have is kinda something you'll need to keep on the down-low, if you don't mind. Sorry about that."

I shrugged like it didn't matter, even if I was rather disappointed. "That's okay. I understand." I glanced at the shelf next to me, across the rows of books. "So, is there another book you recommend?"

And it went on like that until...

* * *

...It was time for my evaluation. I was not at all excited.

Well, I was, but I was so nervous I thought I would explode. For one thing, I was meeting the _branch leader_, Bae Oh. For another, I was going to have to face the consequences of whatever I did that Ted happened to find worthwhile to write down, and I had a feeling that he didn't write down many good things considering there weren't many good things to write down.

All in all, I think I was handling the stress pretty well up until that last five minutes when I thought stomach butterflies were going to eat me alive. And my parents would always tell me there was nothing to fear when it came to bugs, that they wouldn't eat me like I always claimed when I was a child – Ha! Beg to differ.

"You ready?" Ted asked, stepping up beside me. We were waiting outside Bae's office door, the one he always used when he visited the stronghold (as Craig had told me).

"About as ready as I'll ever be," I admitted. "I'm really nervous."

He smiled that oddly-somewhat sympathetic smile and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it. You really didn't do that bad."

"I just hope your notes say the same thing," I replied. "Do you have any bug spray?"

He frowned, confused. "Bug spray?"

"Yeah."

"Why do you need that?"

"To put on my abdomen to make the butterflies go away." I grinned. "What else?"

He cracked a smile back. "Let's go in. They'll go away at the first sight of Bae, I promise you."

"I imagine a Starling's word is as good as gold?" I joked.

"Oh, yes, definitely." He knocked on the door.

"Come in," came the slightly raspy voice from within.

Ted pushed the door open.

My heart stopped.

Dang, a Starling's word really _is_ as good as gold. One look at Bae and those butterflies flew south for the winter.

How can a guy _that old_ look so intimidating?

"Ah, Ted, how wonderful to see you again," Bae Oh said in a polite tone that I feared was probably fake.

"It's been a long time, sir," Ted replied in an equally polite tone that I _knew_ was fake, as was the respectable "sir."

"I take it this is Regina Still, our newest recruit?"

"Yes, sir, I am," I spoke up before Ted, forcing my voice to be steady.

Bae gave a small smile that looked like he didn't use it often. "Please, Regina, Ted, have a seat." He motioned to the two chairs on the other side of his desk. I cast a look at Ted before following his lead and sitting down myself.

"Ted, your notes, if you please," Bae requested, holding out a wrinkly hand.

The much, much younger man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a few folded sheets of paper, passing them to Bae. "Here you go, sir."

"Thank you." The branch leader spent what felt like years analyzing every last word my mentor had written. And every single minute made me just a little more nervous. The fact that he was completely deadpan the whole time didn't help. I had to force myself to study the giant Ekaterina crest painted on the wall behind Bae just to keep from hyperventilating. Finally, he looked up. "Ted, do you have any sort of explanation for these comments?"

"I..." he faltered. "I guess it depends on which notes you mean."

"Attempting to shoot you in the head with a dismantled pen?"

"That was mainly by accident. I was coming through the door as she fired."

"F on physical training exercise?"

"We didn't work on it very long, but I had to grade her, so I gave her a failing mark. She could get better, I assume, with practice."

"Lost a wrench while making an automaton?"

"We found it again while we were cleaning."

"Nearly burned down the kitchen?"

"She offered to help the cooks... I felt the need to write it down, even though it wasn't part of the evaluational algorithms."

Bae laced his fingers. "Can you tell me anything _good_ about your charge?" I didn't like that they were talking about me like I wasn't even there, but I knew better than to speak on my behalf.

"She has a photographic memory in the short term, and excelled on the memory and certain brain game tests. She also seemed to enjoy gadget training, although she didn't do well with gadget _making_; she asked for help every two steps. Also, she enjoys telling stories. She's borrowed many notebooks from me and my siblings and written down stories to tell the other Ekats." Ted paused. "Despite what I wrote, I believe she has potential."

It took a moment or seven, but slowly, slowly, Bae's slight frown turned into a wrinkly old grin. "Well, Ted, you know what they say: 'You learn more on one mission than in months of practice.'"

"Sir?" Ted's nervousness showed through. I knew exactly what Bae meant, and I think he did, too, but I don't think he wanted to admit that I was about to get thrown into the belly of the beast.

"You said she showed potential, Mr. Starling; you do the math," Bae said. "You're good at it."

Doing something between a small smile and a grimace, Ted said, "What did you have in mind, sir?"

"You know my nephew has been kidnapped by Lucians, correct?"

My heart stopped dead.

"Yes, sir, I'm aware..." Ted said. "I assume you're inaugurating a search-and-rescue in which you would like us to participate?"

"Something like that," Bae agreed. "You and Regina are going to break into the Lucian stronghold and get my nephew out. If you succeed, Regina becomes an Ekat for life and you'll get mission points; if you fail, you both will probably be dead. Any questions?"

Ted and I were too busy sitting in stunned silence to give him a real answer.

"Good. You leave tonight at eleven. Don't be late."


	5. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

**IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT**

**- V -**

**by Regina Still**

I stared out the window of the airplane as it got pelted with rain. Ted and I were drenched from the forty-foot walk from the door of the main building to the landing strip where the plane had been waiting. Ted was sitting in the seat beside me, half asleep, his eyes fluttering from open to closed every couple seconds as he fought the hypnotic sounds of water splattering on glass.

I was thinking. For one thing, I was thinking about how rude it was of Bae to tell us that we were leaving, no buts, and that we were leaving _tonight_. Just thirteen hours, and we would be off to a Lucian base.

For another thing, I was thinking about the Ekat base, which I was seeing more and more of as we rose into the sky. I didn't actually know where I was until that moment, in the plane, flying over what I later learned was the Atlantic ocean. I had been taken to their most high-security base, although I was told it wasn't because I was a threat – it was because the Bermuda Triangle stronghold was the only base they had that was surrounded by water, so even if I did manage to escape, I would drown. Apparently they knew that I was pretty good at playing the slippery eel and getting away without being noticed, even though most of the times I had done that before finding out I was an Ekaterina had been accidental.

But there was one other thing I was thinking about as the two of us were steered into the sky by the plane's pilot... and that was of how incredibly hectic the day had been all thanks to Bae Oh.

* * *

I walked numbly into my quarters, leaving Ted to do whatever it is Teds do to get ready for big missions. I collapsed on my bed, snuggling into the warm yellow covers and thinking how nice it would be to be doing something boring right then, like I would have been if I were home.

After about ten minutes of just laying there, I forced myself to stand and went over to my closet. I managed to find a backpack, but it was missing the one thing I _really_ wanted for this mission: a target. A big, red-and-white bull's-eye painted on the back, with bold letters that read SHOOT ME or AIM HERE. Of course, the geniuses at Ekat Headquarters managed to improvise by making it yellow and decorated with little dragons, but it wasn't really what I wanted, so I went off to find Robert.

Now you may be wondering why I'm searching for the one man that could probably care less about me or my mission, but I went to him for one reason: I had never seen him wear yellow, despite his Ekaterina status, and I really needed a backpack that was just as anti-Ekat as the rest of his wardrobe.

I knocked on his bedroom door loudly. "Come in," he called. He obviously didn't know it was me.

I pressed the button that opened the door, and sure enough, it opened; obviously the alarm wasn't armed. "Hello, Robert," I greeted.

The yellow-haired man gave a slight moan. "Oh, it's _you_. What do you want?"

"I just want to borrow a backpack," I assured him. "I promise I'll go away after that."

He looked unimpressed. "Don't you have one?"

"Yes, but I'm breaking into a Lucian base, and I have a feeling that yellow dragons on _anything_ is going to mark me and my partner as obvious foreigners."

Robert seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I think I've got an extra bag you can use. It's black. That should blend in with those snakes rather well."

I smiled. "I don't think calling them snakes is really an insult, considering they seem to like them. And thank you," I added as he handed me the backpack. "I'll bring it back."

"You better," he replied, going back over to his bed and putting his laptop back on his lap. I figured he was probably done listening to me, so I turned away without another word, until he called, "Oh, and good luck. You're gonna need it."

I grinned, trying to hide my fear. "Thanks a ton."

* * *

It was my first mission. I had the inconspicuous bag that wouldn't get me killed; now all I needed to know was what to put in it that would save my life should the color of my backpack not matter. So I went to someone I figured I could trust to at least give me his best shot at trying to find something helpful, unlike Robert who I figured would be stretching his limits at the bag.

I went to find Ned.

Sure enough, I found him in the library, playing a game of chess with Sinead.

"Well, well," he chirped, not bothering to look up as he was contemplating his next move. "If it isn't Miss Checkers. Care to play winner?"

"Loser would be more like it," I replied with a small smile. "I actually came to ask for help."

Sinead perked up. "What for?"

I spilled the story of how Bae was probably off his rocker (an assumption the triplets agreed with wholeheartedly) because he sent me and Ted on a more-or-less suicide mission to a Lucian base to rescue his nephew, Alistair.

"Which is funny, because Bae doesn't really even like Alistair," Ned said, moving a rook across the board. "He probably just wants to get rid of you the easy way – by making the Lucians do it, and have the clean up at that. That's gotta be the height of laziness, not even being willing to kill off your own victims."

I sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, Ned was probably right. Bae was probably only sending me on a mission so I could kill myself for him. It made me a bit angry, but I was still too nervous to truly notice it. "You're probably right. He may only be sending Ted with me as a cover-up, to make it less obvious that he knows it's suicide. Or maybe because he wants someone to report back and say that I'm actually dead. Either way, I kinda feel bad for Ted."

"Ted's a big boy," Sinead replied, smiling up at me from her chair. "He may be my _little_ brother, but he's still a genius. He can hold his own quite well, and I'm sure he can get you out of any jams you find yourselves in. Just chill."

I frowned uncertainly. "If you say so," I said. "But I still need help – I need to figure out what to pack for the mission. I mean, death wish or not, I want to give it my best shot."

"Flashlight," Sinead said immediately. "Spare batteries. A camera, maybe, or camera phone...?"

"I have a photographic memory," I reassured. "Unless I need to learn a page of text instead of an actual picture, we should be fine."

Ned gave me a funny look. "You have a photographic memory, yet you can't memorize text?"

"You have a PhD, yet you can't tie your shoes?" I answered, having heard the rumor.

"Neither can you," he shot back.

"Touché," I replied, "but I don't have a PhD."

"But still, what kind of self-respecting Ekat can't do something as simple as tie a shoelace?" he grumbled.

I figured he must be joking. (Right? He was joking, RIGHT?) "You," I answered, turning to Sinead. "Anything else?"

"Lock picking set," she said with a nod. "Or at least some hairpins. A watch of some sort, it can be on a cellphone. Binoculars, swim goggles... Where are you going, anyway?"

"Fort Knox," I said. "Personally, I'm kind of excited. I like that place. It's cool."

Sinead nodded. "Just be careful. Not all the guards there are Lucians."

"Some are non-Cahills, or Cahills from other branches that don't know about their linage," Ned piped up, taking one of his sister's pawns. "Also, to add to your list of things to get, you're going to want to pack a spare change of clothes. You'd be shocked at how handy stuff like that can get."

"Okay..." I said. "Thank you! Any other words of wisdom before I go?"

They answered at once, and together: "Don't get caught."

How comforting.

* * *

After packing my bag with the things the triplets suggested, I went around and did random things that seemed interesting until about an hour before our plane was supposed to take off. This includes having lunch, chatting with Ted, saying goodbye to Victor Wood (who, apparently, had only been visiting the stronghold at the time of my arrival and was then going back to London to resume his studies), and letting Ned slaughter me in a game of chess. Finally, I went back to my room to change my clothes into something more Lucian-like than my plain green polo shirt (since I had spilled ketchup on my yellow one at lunch). The last thing I needed was for them to think I'm a Janus. (But I heard they have special prison cells at each base for people of certain branches, so maybe the Janus thing wouldn't be so bad.)

I had already thrown on straight-legged jeans in the darkest wash I could find that wasn't black. Then I had slipped on my black penny loafers, even though I thought wearing my Ekat boots was a better idea (but I decided not being found out at all was more important than being able to fight _when_ I was found out). As I was choosing between a red argyle sweater and a red polo shirt, there was a knock at my door.

I was barely able to conceal my surprised _yeep_. "Just a second!" I called, throwing on the sweater, figuring it would be better since it would hide my arms. I was pulling on black leather gloves as I hit the button to open the door.

"Hello, Ted," I said.

"Hi," he said. He looked my outfit up and down before muttering a "Wow."

"What's wrong?" I asked, worried I messed something up.

"You seemed to have given your outfit a lot of thought," he laughed. "I just threw on something I didn't think would arouse suspicion, but you actually seem to be trying to fit in."

"I am," I said. "Why survive when you can thrive?"

"True," he mused. "Our plane is about to leave, though, so if you want to _thrive_ Bae, you may want to hurry."

"Roger, wilco," I quipped, stepping out of my room to follow him, Robert's backpack slung over my shoulder.

* * *

So that's how we got there, in the airplane, bound for our deaths.

Of course, I was just writing the first part of the story in your classic story-book style. In truth, I wasn't thinking about any of that stuff. (Well, okay, Bae and the base crossed my mind, but they didn't stay there long.) I was _waaaaay_ too busy thinking about breaking into a Lucian base and wanting to whack Ted for falling asleep when we're only a few thousand miles from our doom.

But I'm nice, and to be honest, one of us needed to be taking this mission less-than-seriously. If it's him and not me, so be it.

It took about an hour – an hour that, for me, was boring and slightly restless and for Ted was full of soft, barely notable snoring and dreams of disasters and building houses – before I finally saw what we had flown all that way for.

Fort Knox. Wow. It's even cooler from twenty thousand feet.

_"We're coming up on Fort Knox, so if Ted Starling could just wake up, we could get this show on the road,"_ came the voice from the PA.

Ted didn't even stir.

Giggling, I shook his shoulder. "Ted... _Ted_... TED! TED, WAKE UP! A MONSTER'S GOING TO EAT YOU!"

Poor guy. He leapt into the air, like, a foot, he was so startled. I felt bad, but I was giggling all over again and couldn't apologize.

He glared at me. "Gee, thanks a lot. Are we at Knox?"

I nodded. "Yup. Fort Knox, dead ahead."

It was his turn to nod as he stood up and stretched. "Cool. Let's suit up."

I unfolded myself from my chair uneasily. "'Suit up'? For what?"

He tossed me a harness. "You ever been skydiving before?"

My jaw dropped.

Then it hit the floor.

Then it fell through the bottom of the plane and started whacking the treetops far below.

"_Skydiving_?" I nearly squeaked. "I've never even been in a plane before now!"

"Well, now, that's a lie; how do you think you got to Bermuda?"

"I mean while I was _awake_!" I cried. "I don't want to jump out of the first plane I've ever flown in!"

"Too bad," Ted said. "Because it's the only way into Knox undetected. We're going to be flying tandem with the two people that are going to be piloting our escape copter, since I don't know how to do a HALO jump, either."

"We're doing _HALO, too_!?" I cried. "Oh, this just gets better and better."

He grinned. "I knew you'd see it our way! Now suit up. We don't have much time until we reach the drop point."

I finally managed to get into my harness and get hooked up to the guy that was going to throw us out the bay doors like a couple of rag dolls rubber banded together. Ted was also attached to one of the pilots. And while we're on the subject, I'm going to be honest with you – I had no idea who those men were. All I knew was that they looked like Tomas, not Ekats, and that they probably had really stupid names like "Chad," or "Biff," or "Brandon;" you know, names like a hired thug might have in a movie. Oh, and they were dressed completely in black, which, given the circumstances and their roles in the quest, was probably the greatest thing that had happened all day.

Ted's man reached out and threw open the bay doors. Below the clouds I saw the strangely ominous building of Fort Knox, and the surrounding buildings.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the pilot shift in his seat and give our quartet a grin. "Have a good trip!"

I chuckled humorlessly.

"You, too," Ted called back. He seemed confident, but for the first time, I noticed the worried look in his eyes. Huh. So he was scared, too. Oh, this is going to make _such_ good blackmail one of these days – 'cause everybody would expect _me_, the _newbie_, to be scared, but a seasoned Ekat... (Feel free to envision an evil cackle here. Twist it to your liking until it sounds absolutely villainous by your own standards.)

"Three..." the pilot started the countdown.

"Two..." Ted joined in, casting a slightly worried glance at the ground far below.

"One!" I screamed. Suddenly, I totally didn't care anymore about my fear – _get'r done_, as Larry the Cable Guy would say.

Our men jumped out of the plane.

And we were falling through the sky.


	6. Breaking and Entering

**BREAKING AND ENTERING**

**- VI -**

**by Ted Starling**

Right, so. Rage, annoying as she is, was pestering me to write a chapter in her memoirs. I didn't want to do it, because they're her memoirs so why should I have to write them, but she insisted, "Just this one chapter, Ted!" I have a feeling it's _not_ going to be "just one chapter," but I might as well do it, anyway. Don't expect me to do it again, because I'M NOT DOING IT AGAIN, RAGE! (She's reading over my shoulder as I write this.)

So, anyway, to the story: We were falling through the air, inching closer and closer to terminal velocity. Rage was screaming at first like something was trying to eat her, but halfway through it turned into something more closely resembling a screech of joy, so I guess once the terror wore off she started having fun. (Yeah, she's nodding her head, so that's exactly what happened.)

I, on the other hand, was too busy noticing that we were going to be landing in a tree to feel much of anything. Except for the horror of noticing we were going to be landing in a tree, of course.

However, as big an idiot as Bae is, I should have known he wouldn't send idiots with us. Immediately after our chutes opened, Randy and Travis (the guys whose names Rage didn't know) started steering us out of danger until we landed in a small clearing behind the trees, exactly fifty meters from our goal. The landing was a bit rougher than I would have liked, but we made it out unscathed.

In the time it took me to make it out from under the parachute, Rage had already found her way out and unharnessed herself. She was bouncing around the clearing like popcorn, looking exhilarated and happy.

"That was so fun! Let's do it again!" she cried.

I stepped out of my harness and gave her a weary look. "Yeah, let's not," I said. "Once around the park is enough for me." I turned to Travis, the man I had been harnessed to, and said, "Go get the helicopter. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point when the target has been extracted." He nodded, and Randy followed him as he walked off.

Rage gave me a funny look. "Military much?"

"Shut up," I snapped, and led the way down the path that would take us to the back door of Fort Knox.

Of all the Lucian bases, Fort Knox is one of the better protected ones, mostly because it's one of the few that's not a tourist attraction. Armed guards, spotlights, dogs, razer wire and electric fences would mean nothing to anybody because Fort Knox holds the United States' gold reserve. Of course, being a Lucian stronghold, it also holds a Clue. But obviously, I didn't know that at the time, and considering Rage had only just learned that Knox was a stronghold for something other than gold and the US government earlier in the week... Well, Alistair and making it out alive were our biggest concerns at the time.

At the door, I stared at the lock. It was rather simple, just a keypad, and I knew that the program I had put on my phone would get through it quite quickly. "Watch and learn," I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my cellphone.

"Watching," Rage said, but she was staring at the keypad. "I'm not sure what a phone is going to do, though."

"I created a program on it that can decipher keypad locks' combinations."

"Is that why you just have it pointed at the lock and are standing there doing nothing?"

I ignored the insult; years with Ned will teach you that. "Precisely."

"Ah." She shuffled a bit. "So... how long does this usually take?"

"Sixty seconds – fast enough for you?" I asked.

She raised her hands. "Hey, I'm an Aries. We're not known for patience. Add that to the adrenaline and you might as well throw in the towel."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, and grinned when I heard the _click_ of the door unlocking. I reached out to grab the handle when Rage snatched my wrist before I could touch it. "What do you think you're doing?" I snapped. "Are you trying to get us caught?"

"What if the door is electrified?" she asked.

"I just unlocked it," I replied. "Even if it was electrified, it would have been deactivated when the code was punched in."

"But what if that's what the Lucians want you to think?" she asked. "I mean, aren't they the spy branch? If I wanted to protect someplace, I would have made the shutoff switch for the door something different."

"So what do you suggest?" I asked, slightly exasperated.

She pulled some rubber gloves out of her backpack and slipped them on over her leather gloves. She pulled the door open. "That," she replied, holding it so it wouldn't slam shut again. I walked in behind her and she pulled off her gloves, stuffing them back in the bag.

"Where to from here?" she questioned, scanning the barren corridor.

"Down the hall, and we take the first left."

We walked off.

The place was strangely empty. We walked by labs and went on undetected. I noticed multiple security cameras, but none of them gave any indication of thinking we were out of the ordinary – no guards, flashing lights, dogs, anything. We even passed a man out in the hallway (the first and only one we had seen on our way to the prison block in the basement), but he just walked right by us with a nod. Rage had (amazingly) kept her cool and nodded right back before continuing on like she had something important to do, like kick a puppy or poison an Uzbekistan water supply. I ignored the man – I actually _was_ doing something important.

(No, Rage, it wasn't humming the "Mission Impossible" theme song. That was _you_... No, you were the one with "Extreme Ways" stuck in your head as well. I was trying to keep the map in my head so we could actually _find Alistair_! Now be quiet so I can get this stupid chapter over with.)

Finally, we managed to get into the prison area. It only consisted of about twenty cells, ten on each side of a long hallway. Rage and I came to a silent agreement: I'd check the left side, she'd check the right.

Cell after cell, and I was beginning to lose hope. Perhaps Alistair wasn't here? Could Bae have really set us up, and Alistair was actually in Cairo or Luxor, or maybe even back in his hometown of Seoul? That seemed like the kind of nasty trick Bae would pull, sending two young agents out into the field on a mission that didn't need done.

That, however, is when Rage screamed.

* * *

"Ted! He's in here! I see him! Hi, Mr. Oh!"

"_Shhhhh_!" I hissed, running over to where she was standing and making it in a couple of steps. "What happened to blending in? Given the circumstances, I would say that was rather conspicuous."

"Oh, hush," she said, still grinning through the barred window in the door at the captive on the other side. "Are you okay, Mr. Oh?"

I pulled out my cellphone and leveled it at the keypad, activating my genius program. (Yes, I will stroke my ego in your memoirs. You asked for it.)

_Click._

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Oh," Rage said, pulling open the door and holding out a hand. "I'm Regina, a new recruit for the Ekaterinas."

"How lovely to meet you, my dear," Alistair replied. He looked up at me. "And hello, Ned."

"I'm Ted, Uncle Alistair."

"Oh, pardon me."

"Not the first, not the last," I said with a shrug, referring to how many people mixed Ned and me up on a daily basis.

"_Uncle_ Alistair?" Rage asked, confused. "You're related?"

Alistair gave a small laugh. "No, no, not beyond being Cahills. I tell many of the younger members of the Cahill family to call me 'Uncle.' Usually only the ones I like. You may call me that as well, my dear Regina, if you would like."

Rage seemed to consider it for a moment. "I'm not really close to any of my uncles. I don't like most of them." She smiled at Alistair. "You don't seem too bad, though. So okay. Thank you, Uncle Alistair."

"To cut to the chase," I cut in, "we've come to free you. But we need to get moving; we're bound to have been discovered by now. Breaking into a prison cell is not exactly what normal Lucian teenagers would do. At least, I would assume not."

"Then let us leave," Alistair replied.

Rage whipped around and peeked out the door. "Did we leave the cell block door open?"

I felt a sinking feeling almost immediately. "No."

* * *

That was when we started to run.

Alistair was quite fast for his age, and only lagged slightly behind Rage. Rage was second-fastest next to me, but I wasn't winded as quickly as they were. Though I have to hand it to Rage – she kept going, even though she was obviously out of breath. (And, as I was just informed, apparently she's winded easily, but had pushed through it so many times that she could do a lot on little oxygen. I'll have to look it up to see if that's even possible...)

Why were we running? Because we had half a dozen well-armed Lucians chasing us with poison dart guns and regular guns and multiple kinds of martial arts training. Why do you ask?

"We have to get out of here!" Rage panted.

"How do we do that?" I shouted back. "We're locked in and have the entire base after us!"

Alistair pointed off to the side, at a door. "Perhaps there is a means of escape in there."

Rage took one glance at the sign on the door and squealed. "Get in there! I can get us out!"

I didn't have time to see what the sign said before I threw myself at the doorway. I wrenched it open and quickly glanced around as I ushered the others in before me. We had lost the Lucians a few halls back, but even now I could hear their pounding feet as they followed the noise we made.

I leapt in and made a conscious effort not to slam the door behind me; instead I closed it quietly, only to turn around and see...

You know, I think I'm going to stop writing right there. I told Rage I would write one two thousand-word chapter, and that I have done. Well, almost. I just like to torture people, and since Rage seems quite indifferent to cliff hangers, I think I'll make her story seem better by adding one. I'm sure she'll thank me later.

Now, I'm going to leave this notebook in the chair and get out of the room before Rage comes back from the kitchen and tells me to write more. See ya!


	7. Saving Ted

**SAVING TED (ALTHOUGH I REGRET IT NOW)**

**- VII -**

**by Regina Still**

Stupid Ted and his stupid cliffhangers and his stupid running away before I could tell him how stupid he is... Now, where did he leave off? … Oh, yes.

I was shuffling through drawers in what kind of resembled a kitchen cabinet in what reminded me of a break room. You know, like you might find at an office building? One of those. A sink and microwave were on a granite counter top, and there were lots of cabinets and drawers that supported it. On the other side of the room were a couple tables and some chairs at each one, and it almost reminded me of a much smaller version of the cafeteria at the Ekat stronghold.

Uncle Alistair sat down heavily in one of the chairs. Apparently running isn't his thing. "My dear girl, pray tell, what are you doing?"

"Contemplating that Lucians have birthdays, too," I replied, slamming that drawer closed in disgust and moving on to the next one.

"You have to be born to have a birthday," grumbled Ted. "And if you're born, you typically have a soul, which Lucians don't, so my money-"

"Man, Ted, you're a mind reader!" I said happily. I walked straight up to him and held out my hand, palm up. "Give me all your change."

"What?"

"Change, coins, _metal cash_. Call it what you want, I need it."

He dug into his pocket and pulled out exactly five pieces of metal cash.

"Sorry, this is all I have on me," he said. "If you can use _paper_ money, I have more of that, but for change-"

"That's not going to work," I cut him off. "So make yourself useful, go into that bathroom over there" - I pointed at the door for the men's restroom - "and get me two empty toilet paper rolls."

"Two... _toilet paper rolls_?"

"_Empty_ toilet paper rolls! Y'know, just the cardboard tube. I need two. I don't care if you have to empty the paper onto the floor, the Lucians can clean it up later. Now, go!" I whipped back around and started digging through the drawers again, throwing a tape dispenser (with tape) onto the counter.

Out of the corner of my vision, I saw the restroom door swing closed.

"Regina, dear, please, what are you looking for?" Uncle Alistair tried again.

Finally, I found it. I gripped the plastic bag and held it in the air above my head triumphantly. "This, to be exact. Party balloons!" I glanced back into the drawer and noticed another thing I needed. "And scissors," I added, throwing both the latex balloons and the sharp, pointy object onto the table.

"Whatever for?" Uncle Alistair asked.

"You'll see, whenever Ted gets back." I bit my lip and turned around to face him. "You wouldn't happen to have any change on you, would you, Uncle Alistair?"

"I'm afraid not."

I sighed. "I'll manage, I'm sure."

I turned back to my supplies. I reached into the bag and pulled out a yellow latex balloon. Of all the colors on the planet, yellow is probably one of my least favorites, although I have nothing against it. But when I totally beat the Lucians, I want to show a little Ekaterina pride. I stretch the balloon out so it's neck is exposed, and then I decapitate it with the scissors, tossing the neck aside. I only need the bulbous part for this. I did it to two balloons, both yellow.

Ted, the slowpoke, finally makes it out of the bathroom and hands me the rolls. "I had to empty them both, what are the balloons for?" He said this without skipping a beat, which I thought was an interesting subject change, but for someone who's so used to doing everything with technology and/or high-tech gadgetry, doing something with something as simple as balloons and toilet paper rolls is probably a mind blow in epic proportions.

"Giving us a chance to get out of here. I would have preferred there to have been a window in here, though," I replied, and snatched the rolls.

I stretched the balloons until they fit over one opening of the rolls, and then taped them both securely in place. Now I had two cardboard tubes with balloons on one side of each. Yay.

"We're dead," Ted muttered, looking at my invention. "So very, very dead."

"No, we're not," I said, because I had just spied the missing component to my weapon. "'Cause we have HARD CANDIES!"

"How the heck are Jolly Ranchers going to help?!" Ted cried, as I loaded up my pockets with Jolly Ranchers from a jar on the counter.

"You don't know what this thing is, do you?" I asked him.

"No, not beyond knowing it's stupid and going to get us killed."

"It's a Coin Launcher," I said, ignoring his comment. "You put pennies in it, or other small items, and it will launch them up to sixty feet."

"How is that going to help?" he asked. "The Lucians have _guns_."

"You've never fired one of these things, but I have. This thing shoots out with more PSI than you might imagine. I know I wouldn't want to be hit with it at close range."

He was silent for a moment. "So we're going against guns with Jolly Ranchers."

"Pretty much."

"You realize our chances of victory are slim."

"I knew that before we were even on the plane."

He shrugged and started filling his own pockets with the candy. "So long as you know. But I guess worse comes to worst we'll be killed. Better than hiding in a lounge area, waiting to be discovered and killed later."

"True," I said with a smile. I turned to Uncle Alistair. "Uncle Alistair, you stay behind us and let us know if there's someone who needs a piece of candy stuck between their eyes. We're going to be sneaking out and I don't want to have to use these if we can at all help it."

He nodded and stood up.

Time to make some snakes cry.

* * *

"Anything?" I whispered to Ted, who was creeping silently beside me as we made our way down the hall toward our exit point.

"Not yet," he whispered back. "Maybe we lost them for good."

"I doubt it," I said. "What would be the chances of that?"

"Slim," he admitted. "I'm just trying to remain optimistic."

"That's more of a Dreamin' Freeman line of thinking than an optimistic one, I'm just saying," I replied.

We crept along. Hallway after hallway passed, and we got closer and closer to our destination. The closer we got, the more hopeful I became. Maybe nobody noticed that we had left. Maybe we had made it out. Maybe we could make it all the way out to the helicopter and not have to use our Coin Launchers. Maybe we wouldn't have to risk our lives in a battle that we would almost surely lose. Maybe...

_BANG!_

Or maybe they'd sneak up on us the second we got the exiting door in our sights.

I gasped, and started fumbling to find the candy I had loaded in my launcher before leaving the lounge. It had never been this hard to find through the balloon at home!

Six Lucians stepped out from adjacent halls and doorways, guns aimed and ready. I loosed my Rancher.

_Ka-THUNK._

It hit the wall, but they were startled. It sounded frighteningly like a gun or something. Now they knew we were armed. Granted, with my bad aim and Ted's lack of experience we weren't exactly "dangerous," but they didn't need to know that.

I reloaded with yet another candy while Ted loosed his own, missing as well. We were lightning fast with our reloading and firing, and a couple times we even hit some of the agents, and they cried out in surprise at the amount of pain a hard candy launched from a toilet paper roll powered by a balloon could administer.

Amazingly, they began to fall back, and in my mind I was shouting: _YES! WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT!_ We advanced, slowly, pushing them back and getting us closer to the door.

_ BANG!_

I let out a screech. A bullet had grazed my arm, and may I say that it _hurt_. I don't swear, but I think I was pretty close to it then.

Hearing my yelp, Ted made the mistake of glancing at me. An agent saw his opening and leveled his gun's barrel right at my friend's head.

_No!_ I thought in a panic, and brought up my own weapon's barrel, ignoring my arm's screaming protest. I knew that the chances of me hitting him were slim, but I took aim, and, knowing full well I didn't have time for a full prayer, thought, _Please, Heavenly Father..._

I released the Rancher.

The agent reeled, clutching his hand and dropping his gun. I must have hit his finger.

_YESSSSSS! THANK YOU, JESUS, YOU ROCK!_ I thought gleefully and looked at Ted. His lips were a firm line. I had a feeling he knew what almost happened and it wasn't sitting well.

"Let's go!" I shouted at him, and charged forward. There were only a few agents still there. I just wanted to get out. I wanted to leave that crazy base. I mean, yeah, I had always wanted to see Fort Knox, but that had not been what I had in mind and I was pretty much done; I had seen all I wanted.

The three of us charged toward the door.

… Hahaha... and it _worked_! Ted and I raced like cheetahs toward the door, Uncle Alistair right on our heels. Ted shot one Lucian at point-blank range right in the stomach as we raced past, taking them all by surprise. (Oh, um... They were surprised we were just running by them, not that Ted had hit that one guy with a Sour Apple... That mostly stunned me.)

We kept going, faster, longer, harder, until we finally made it to the helicopter. One of the pilots threw open the door, and the other one turned on the rotors. We threw ourselves in, panting and on the fritz.

"Are you done?" one man, the one that opened the door, asked gruffly. (Ted is reading over my shoulder as I write this, and he says the guy's name was Travis. I guess he would know, right?)

"Just step on it!" Ted shouted, standing up.

I pulled my arm back closer to my body. Ted had landed on it. But thankfully it wasn't the same one as I was shot in.

We rose into the sky and Uncle Alistair pointed out my wound to Ted. "Ted, Regina has a gash on her arm. Perhaps we should bandage it."

"I'm getting to that," he replied. It was true; he had been getting down the first-aid kit from a shelf when Uncle Alistair said that.

"How bad does it hurt?" Ted asked as he disinfected the cut. "One to ten, ten being 'I wish I were dead.'"

"Ow," I said, grimacing.

"Five it is."

Uncle Alistair said, "That was quite brave of you, my dear, if a bit foolish."

I shrugged. "I've done some stupid things in my life and I've done some hard things. That one may have taken the cake for stupid, but I've done harder."

Ted abruptly tightened the bandage. (He later claimed – er, rather, he _just now_ claimed – that he had done that because it's easier to get bandages tight when the area is relaxed and you do it quickly, making it tight faster. I think he did it to be spiteful because Alistair was being nice to me and not him.)

"Yigh...!" I clenched my teeth and took a deep breath. "Ow." I looked down at the seemingly flawless wrapping Ted applied to my arm. "Wow. Great job. Thanks, Ted."

"Don't mention it," he replied modestly.

"No, really," I insisted, "I appreci-"

"_Ever_," he said. "The last thing I need is for Ned to think we should start dating. I'll never hear the end of it."

I laughed.

It was good to be alive.


	8. Wired Communications

**WIRED COMMUNICATIONS**

**- VIII -**

**by Regina Still**

Three in the morning. When was the last time I had stayed up that late?

People from the base had apparently stayed up just to see us come back. We were greeted with hugs from a few people, mugs of hot chocolate from the cook (I would have preferred tea, but I'm not picky), and congratulations from everyone. Ned and Sinead were reunited with Ted and seemed relieved that he was all right. They even gave me hugs and seemed quite... pleased?... that I had gotten shot and survived, even if it was only a graze. (I guess my training gave me a wimpy reputation...)

Long story short, the "Welcome Home!" party was fantastic and lasted about as long as it took the three of us – that is, me, Ted and Alistair - to thank everyone, down our hot chocolate and collapse on our beds.

And then came the next morning.

I woke up late, despite the shrill shrieking of my alarm, but apparently nobody really expected us to arrive on time because Ted was also late for breakfast. But the cooks insisted on making us pancakes and eggs even though we were late, despite my own insisting that I was fine eating a couple pieces of fruit.

Best. Pancakes. Ever. If you're an Ekaterina, you need to talk to Bae about taking some summer classes at the Bermuda Triangle stronghold, because there you have to bunk in one of their many rooms and you get to try their pancakes. If you're not an Ekaterina... I feel really sorry for you.

After breakfast, it was time for our debriefing with Bae.

"Good luck," Sinead called after Ted and me as we walked away.

"You're gonna need it," I heard Ned mumble. I hoped he was joking.

* * *

"Ah, Regina, Ted, please have a seat," Bae said when we walked into his office. "I talked to Alistair earlier. He made it out unscathed and spoke highly of your bravery and resourcefulness. Well done."

"Thank you, Mr. Oh," we said in unison.

"Miss Still, how is your arm doing?" he asked.

"Quite well, sir. Just a graze," I assured.

"Good." He sat back in his seat. "I'll admit, I wasn't sure you would be able to pull it off, and yet here you are, alive and healthy, if a little banged up, and my nephew has been returned."

"We gave it our best shot, sir," Ted said. I nodded my agreement.

"It seems your best was good enough," Bae mused. "And as I promised, Mr. Starling, you now have mission points. And Miss Still, you are now recognized as an Ekaterina, the first in your line for many generations. Congratulations."

"Thank you," we both said, but I think we were both bursting with pride and excitement on the inside.

I glanced at Ted, only to see he was gazing at me, too. Over our eggs I had admitted that I really wanted to ask Bae if he would give me contact to my parents. I missed them dearly, and I wanted to see if I would be allowed to call them. Just once (although I'd take as many times as I could get). Just to let them know I was all right. Now Ted was raising his eyebrows and flicking his eyes in Bae's direction. _Go on,_ he urged. _Ask him._

"Mr. Oh?" I began. He looked at me. "I was wondering... if perhaps I could give my parents a call? I really miss them, and I have no idea if they know I'm okay. They may think I'm dead. Surely you understand?"

Bae was silent for a long time. For awhile, I thought I had made him mad, which maybe I did, but in any case, he said, "No, I'm sorry."

I was more or less flabbergasted. Even Ted seemed pretty surprised, his blue eyes widening a bit. He glanced at me, but my face was completely calm; something I had taught myself a couple years before.

"That's all right, sir. Thank you for considering it," I said, something between a calmness and a cheeriness in my voice, hopefully not as fake-sounding to him as it was to me.

He nodded. "You're welcome. I'm sorry about it."

"No need to be. I understand completely," I lied. In truth I understood nothing, but I wasn't about to say that to him.

My plan was almost complete, anyway.

After we walked out, Ted tried to apologize for the rejection. I shrugged and said that I expected that answer (which wasn't a lie) and that I was going to the library.

When I got there, Sinead was sitting in a chair fiddling with her phone. She asked me how it went and when I said it went well enough, she asked what that meant. I just said, "My access was denied." She seemed to understand.

Without hesitation, I went over to the area I had scouted out a couple days before, plucked a book from the shelf and began skimming the table of contents to find what I wanted to read about.

All that was left was praying it worked out the way I wanted it to.

* * *

Night fell, but it wasn't really late. Maybe nine o'clock, maybe ten. I wasn't totally sure, all I knew was that I was dressed completely in black, a notebook under my arm, creeping along the hallways and trying to avoid suspicious gazes – and people in general.

I tried to picture the layout of the base in my head, but I didn't have much of one. Craig had been talking so much through the whole tour that I could barely focus on anything, let alone making a map of the place. And still, there were places I hadn't seen, and the place I was going was one of them.

I continued down the hallways and soon found what I was looking for. It was more or less the central hub for all communicational efforts, including the one place that the phone lines ran into. That was my mission that night: going in and splicing the phone line and calling my parents, praying that I could somehow manage to do it. I held an old phone, but I wasn't sure if the interface would accept it. I guess I would see.

The room was protected by a keypad, but that was nothing: I took some talcum powder from one of the many labs and dusted it on the keys, then blew it off. It stuck where there were body oils to hold it in place, and where it was thickest there were more oils. I pressed the buttons in the order of thickest powder to least-thick powder and the lock retracted. So far, so good.

I managed to locate the phone line panel because it was labeled, and the correct phone line thanks to the diagram I drew in my notebook. But that's as far as I got before I was caught.

"I'd ask what you're doing in here if I didn't already know."

I whipped around and, standing in the doorway I had foolishly left open, was the one and only Ned Starling.

"Oh, Ned," I whispered, relieved, "it's only you. Don't scare me like that."

He smiled in the sub-darkness. "I had a feeling you wouldn't take no for an answer."

I sighed. "So, what? Are you going to rat me out? Get me kicked out of the Ekat circle I just got into?"

"No," he said simply. He walked over and hooked up a laptop, which I hadn't realized was tucked under his arm, to the panel in the wall. "I'm here to help," he added. He typed on it for a few minutes and then smiled, closing the lid. "The next call made from here won't be recorded. It will be like it never happened." He smiled again.

"I... I don't know what to say, Ned," I said, almost wanting to cry. "Thank you so much."

"Hey, no problem," he said. He took my phone from me and quickly hook it up, handing me the receiver a minute later. "When you're done with your call, just unhook this wire and no one will ever know, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks so much, Ned. I owe you one."

"Darn right you do. Don't expect me not to collect one day. But for now, reap the benefits of being friends with a genius."

We laughed.

He disconnected his laptop and walked out, closing the door behind him. I quickly dialed my home phone number, praying at every _brrrrrr_ sound that my parents were home and would pick up.

_Please be home, please pick up, Lord, have them be home, have them pick up in spite of the unknown number, have them-..._

"Hello?"

Tears immediately sprang to my eyes, and suddenly I thanked God for Ned. How did I get along before meeting the Starling triplets? "Mom?" I asked quietly.

"Honey?!" She sounded shocked and tired and happy. I thought I heard her sniff. She called for my father, and when he came on the line, he asked, "Regina, are you okay?"

It took me a second to answer. I quickly made a little slide show in my mind of everything that had happened from the time I got kidnapped up to that point. Fear, embarrassment, shame, loneliness, confusion, elation, freedom, joy and more swirled throughout me and as I began to think about it, and all the friends I had made and the things I had learned, I knew what the answer was.

"Yeah, Dad... I'm doing fantastic. You'll never believe what's been going on. But first, how are you doing?"

"Much better now," my mother assured. "What's been happening?"

So I told them. I told them about Ted. And Sinead. And Ned. And the Cahills. And the Ekaterinas. And my heritage. And my break-in at Fort Knox (which they had heard about on the news). I told them everything. No expense spared. Just like it is with this book.

A few hours later, I told them that I should probably get to bed, and hung up.

I slept better that night than ever before.

* * *

_**Author's Afterword**_

_So there you have it, people. That was how your hero started out; getting kidnapped, failing every test, nearly getting killed at a Lucian base, and whining about everything along the way. If that's the kind of person you want to idolize, go ahead; I'll be more than happy to pay for your head examination if you send me the bill._

_ However, I hope this was more enlightening than it really felt. I hope my point was made and understood. I hope you guys realize that I'm not worth all the hoopla you insist on throwing my way._

_ I don't really expect it, because I know you guys. But it's a beautiful thought._

_ Oh, don't worry. My story doesn't end there. This is a trilogy, remember? I haven't even told you what's a lie and what's the truth about the time during the Clue hunt. Or after the Vespers attack and the hostages are still hostages. You'll see. Any respect you may have gained from this story (even though I didn't destroy the Lucians with mind-melding powers like that one exaggeration, escaping with Jolly Ranchers is still pretty cool) is guaranteed to be completely gone by the end of the next story. Just you wait and see. You'll see me for what I truly am soon enough._

_ Keep on the lookout for my next book, the second in "The Girl in Argyle" trilogy, because with any luck it's going to be coming to you real soon._

_ Until we meet again._


End file.
